1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic card module equipped with a function of storing information about the fabrication/maintenance/operation of a product and, more particularly, to an electronic card module (an electronic module, an electronic board, a digital board, etc.) for storing information about its own fabrication, maintenance, and operation in various industrial electronic card modules and for monitoring and managing the electronic card module based on the stored information.
2. Background of the Related Art
An electronic card module (an electronic module or an electronic board) used in various industries and homes is configured to have various electronic parts, such as semiconductor chips (ICs), condensers, resistors, transistors, and slots, mounted on a PCB according to system implementation and to have a main function circuit unit formed therein. The electronic card module is being used according to various industry systems, such as a computer, a telephone exchange, an industry plant, an Internet system, a network system, a power source controller, and a specific driving device.
FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view of a conventional exemplary electronic card module. As shown, the electronic card module 1 includes a fixing member fixed to one side of a PCB panel in order to fix the module to a rack 100 and a main function circuit unit 10 including various electronic parts configured to perform the functions of the module and mounted on the PCB.
Each of the electronic card modules plays an important role in implementing the entire system. When one module fails, the entire system is stopped or an error is generated in the entire system. It is thus very important to individually manage the electronic card modules. Furthermore, a system including a number of the electronic card modules must be thoroughly managed because it is very sensitive to a change of an environment, such as temperature or humidity.
Accordingly, there is a need to manage the entire history from a process of fabricating a product to a process of using the product, such as pieces of information about the fabrication, maintenance, and operation of the electronic card module product.
However, a conventional electronic card module is problematic in that an administrator must write by hand and maintain information about fabrication, maintenance, and operation during a system operation because the electronic card module does not include a circuit capable of storing the information. Furthermore, a history of the electronic card module is not properly managed because there is a strong possibility that the information may be lost owing to careless management after a lapse of long time. Accordingly, in case of operating time, there is a problem in that an accurate time to replace parts is not properly managed because the time actually used is different from the time used on record.
Furthermore, an expensive electronic card module is replaced according to an equipment use period after use of some time on the basis of fabrication year/month/day, irrespective of whether the electronic card module is normally operated. This electronic card module is problematic in that management is inconvenient because an administrator must record operation information by hand on the basis of fabrication year/month/day and an actual operating time count is difficult because there is time when the electronic card module is not driven. Accordingly, the electronic card module is replaced after a lapse of an equipment use period even though the electronic card module has a lot of the remaining use period. Consequently, the utilization efficiency of an expensive electronic card module is low, and the operation of the electronic card module is not reliable.
Furthermore, the electronic card module that cannot count the time used actually may cause a failure owing to low reliability, and a failure of one or two sheets of electronic card modules may stop the entire control system. Accordingly, there is a problem in that an enormous loss may be generated in a large-sized system (a generation plant, a production plant, etc.).